100 Brightest Galaxies for Southern Observers

by Paul Mayo


Common lists of Astronomical Objects have historically been compiled by Astronomy pioneers and more recently by institutes like the Space Science Telescope Institute (STScI) who compiled the first Guide Star Catalogue to meet the operational needs of the Hubble Space Telescope. Now a new Guide Star Catalogue, GSC-2, is in production and the catalogue already contains data for more than 450-Million Stars and Non-Stellar Objects. With such an abundant amount of astronomical data available it isn’t always easy to manipulate these huge amounts of data to produce printable, shareable and useful lists.

 

Furthermore, while we often have reasonably easy access to well established astronomical catalogues, such as the Messier List and the NGC catalogue, we are rarely treated to lists that provide answers to questions like:- Which 100 Galaxies are the brightest in the Southern Sky? Or which are the 50 Brightest Planetary Nebulae in Southern Skies? Or How many Galaxies, in the Southern Sky, are larger than 10 arc minutes and brighter than Magnitude 10 ?


In this article I’ve extracted data from the database of a popular Australian Astronomical software package, to produce the following list of the 100 Brightest Galaxies South of 0° Declination.

 

The table data originates from the Lyon-Muedon Extra-Galactic (LEDA) database, or more commonly, the Principal Galaxy Catalogue (PGC1996). The LEDA database, created by G. Paturel from the de Lyon Observatory in France, collates data from all other known Galaxy Catalogues into one single database, such that LEDA contains many well known constituent astronomical catalogues that include Messier, NGC, IC, ESO, MCG and more than thirty others.

 

The 100 Brightest Galaxies South of 0° Declination.

 

Designation

B-Mag.

Type

F

PA

Size

 

Constellation

R.A.

 

 

DEC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Major

Minor

 

Hr

Min

Sec

°

‘

“

ESO56-115 (LMC)

 0.902

SBm

B

170

645.65

549.54

Dorado

5

23

34

-69

45

 

22

NGC292 (SMC)

 2.747

SBm

B

45

319.15

205.12

Tucana

0

52

38

-72

48

1

NGC5128

 7.631

SO

M

35

27.61

20.46

Centaurus

13

25

28

-43

0

59

NGC5236 (M83)

 7.913

SBc

B

?

13.3

12.45

Hydra

13

37

0

-29

52

4

NGC253

 7.917

SBc

B

52

26.73

5.94

Sculptor

0

47

33

-25

17

18

NGC55

 8.391

SBm

B

108

31.26

5.93

Sculptor

0

15

8

-39

13

13

NGC300

 8.785

Scd

 

111

19.32

13.34

Sculptor

0

54

53

-37

40

57

NGC4594 (M104)

 8.980

Sa

 

89

8.47

4.35

Virgo

12

39

59

-11

37

22

Fornax Dwarf

 9.032

E

 

60

62.66

48.75

Fornax

2

39

59

-34

26

57

NGC6744

 9.116

SBbc

B

15

20.94

13.61

Pavo

19

9

45

-63

51

21

NGC4945

 9.267

SBc

B

43

20.42

4.06

Centaurus

13

5

26

-49

28

15

NGC6822

 9.322

Irr

B

5

15.17

14.03

Sagittarius

19

44

57

-14

48

11

NGC1316

 9.367

SO

B

50

11.27

7.67

Fornax

3

22

41

-37

12

27

NGC1068 (M77)

 9.401

Sb

 

70

7.45

6.41

Cetus

2

42

40

-00

0

48

NGC1291

 9.422

SO-a

BR

?

9.71

8.36

Eridanus

3

17

17

-41

6

27

NGC247

 9.639

SBcd

B

174

21.13

5.27

Cetus

0

47

8

-20

45

37

NGC1313

 9.657

SBcd

B

?

9.02

7.16

Reticulum

3

18

15

-66

29

50

NGC7793

 9.697

Scd

 

98

9.59

6.15

Sculptor

23

57

49

-32

35

23

NGC3521

 9.711

SBbc

B

163

10.72

5.25

Leo

11

5

48

-00

2

14

NGC3115

 9.856

E-SO

 

43

7.29

3.28

Sextans

10

5

14

-07

43

7

LEDA0094934

10.000

Sab

 

83

2.54

2.13

Phoenix

0

31

23

-56

14

48

LEDA0095462

10.000

Sc

 

?

2.00

1.00

Sculptor

1

19

47

-33

5

2

NGC2997

10.071

SBc

B

110

9.42

6.84

Antila

9

45

39

-31

11

28

NGC3621

10.077

SBcd

B

159

11.97

5.4

Hydra

11

18

16

-32

48

48

NGC4697

10.124

E

 

70

5.96

4.06

Virgo

12

48

35

-05

48

1

NGC1097

10.150

SBb

BR

130

9.57

6.55

Fornax

2

46

18

-30

16

21

NGC5102

10.280

E-SO

 

48

7.74

2.64

Centaurus

13

21

57

-36

37

46

NGC1566

10.288

SBbc

B

60

8.77

6.56

Dorado

4

20

0

-54

56

18

NGC1553